Tanner Medical Center and the Department of Community Health sought attorney fees after successfully defending the denial of a certificate of need for a proposed psychiatric hospital. The superior court denied fees because the applicants had prevailed in the earlier superior-court proceeding and had raised constitutional arguments. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed. It held that its earlier reversal of the superior court made Tanner and the Department the prevailing parties for purposes of Georgia’s certificate-of-need fee statute, and that the prior decision was the law of the case. The statute barred fees only for the portion of a challenge directed at the agency’s authority, jurisdiction, or a constitutional issue, not for the entire proceeding. Because the earlier decision had resolved the certificate issue on grounds independent of the constitutional challenge, the appellants could recover reasonable fees and costs for the eligible work. The court remanded for a hearing limited to calculating the amount.